ThinkSound MS01 Monitor Series Headphones Review

For the past few years ThinkSound has been producing some of the nicest, eco-friendly, and natural-sounding in-ear headphones on the market. They have just released their MS01 Monitor In-Ear Headphones, which were engineered to provide the most accurate musical reproduction (and do so quite well!).

We have an extremely auspicious relationship with our previously reviewed ThinkSound earbuds. They all provide such rich, full, and natural sounding audio quality that makes our music jump for joy. As an added bonus, ThinkSound focuses on promoting a greener earth with their minimalistic recycled packaging, real wooden earbuds, and headphone recycling program. It feels good to go green!

Like all ThinkSound Headphones, the MS01 monitor series are beautifully hand crafted out of a lightweight wooden housing. The wood creates audio resonance that produces such a warm and natural sound that will make you wish every pair of headphones were wooden. The ends of the earbuds are a gunmetal chocolate wood housing with an aluminum baffle. There’s a fine mesh aluminum grill that complements the “sweat-resistant” design. The included Active Lifestyle Ear Hooks also make the MS01s a good choice for the gym and exercising.

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The PVC-Free headphone cable is nice and thick, which keeps them from easily tangling. Unfortunately, there’s no ControlTalk button or microphone, but we would not be surprised to see it in the future. They use a straight 3.5mm gold plated headphone plug. The soft silicone ear tips come in small, medium, large, and extra-large. There’s a great cotton(eco-friendly) carrying pouch included, also a cord clip and a one year limited warranty.

We can’t help but emphasize these words when explaining the ThinkSound MS01 audio quality: natural, rich, full, detailed, and warm. The MS01 are monitor headphones, which mean they’re not skewed towards sounding a certain way. They’re designed to produce the most fidelity and accuracy to the original recording. They use a 8mm high-definition driver that produces a full range of sound, almost as balanced as it gets. Music sounds fantastic and true. Musicians and anyone who plays music will have an appreciation for the accurate reproduction of sounds. Listening to an acoustical artist like Beirut, where most songs feature a myriad of instruments, is a heavenly experience. Depending on the native audio quality(bitrate), each instrument can be individually identified, and shines through as intended. The highs are crisp and clear. The mids are detailed and full. The bass is low and very responsive. Even bass-heavy music like rap and electronic will not disappoint.

The ThinkSound MS01s are comfortable and lightweight. They don’t easily fall out of your ears; the ear hooks can also help in this respect. Personally, I didn’t use the ear hooks as they were a bit small for my ears and the MS01s regularly sit fine in my ear. The earbuds are pretty efficient; I didn’t always have to crank them up to 70% in loud areas. The silicone tips do a nice job of naturally isolating ambient noise.

As we’ve found with the entire ThinkSound lineup, the MS01s are a fantastic pair of headphones with extreme audio quality that happen to be very accurate and true. At $99.99 (with free shipping) the ThinkSound MS01 Studio In-Ears will not disappoint. ThinkSound even offers a really cool (and green!) headphone recycling program where they’ll give a 15% discount for sending them an old pair of headphones (working or not). You get 25% off if you recycle a pair of ThinkSounds. Really, the only thing that the MS01s are missing is a ControlTalk button with Mic, even if the lack thereof keep them extra-lightweight. If you can’t live without this button we highly recommend the ThinkSound TS02+Mic for $89.95 on Amazon.